Some Analysis on the Works of Tamora Pierce
by Andrea Rimsky
Summary: Analysis of various aspects of the Tamora Pierce canon, taken into to horrific and nauseating detail, and with far too much seriousness. A parody of literary criticism, as that genre is usually reserved for works with more than just entertainment value.
1. A Fair, if Heavy, Hand

"A Fair, if Heavy, Hand:" Despotism and Decency in Tamora Pierce's Emelan

All of the books in Ms Pierce's The Circle Opens quartet involve criminal justice of some kind. In the first, a Mafia-like feud complicated with illegal drugs must be resolved; the second deals with gangs, and the third and forth with arson and serial murder respectively. Also of note is the location of each book: all take place in different countries with different states of judicial integrity. It is the setting of the first in the series, also of the prequel quartet Circle of Magic, which will be treated the most closely here. This is the state of Emelan, ruled over by the virtuous and just Duke Vedris IV.

Briar, in Street Magic, yearns for "Duke Vedris's fair, if heavy, hand in such matters [of the law]" when confronted by the corruption of the Arabian-like city he is in. Interestingly, even Ms. Pierce's characters, inhabitants of an often-brutal medieval world, think the duke is somewhat overly severe, echoing our own sentiments as we are shown his kind of justice: ten years of hard labor for the possession of illegal drugs. But he is also concerned with cruelty to animals: torturing a dog brings a very stiff fine in his dukedom. What is the character of such a man, who is at once a paragon of enlightened kindness and justice in a corrupt world and a strict patriarch, who legislates modern values with medieval harshness?

The personality of the duke is most interesting in that it is nonexistent. He seems to have a fatherly love for his niece, and the existence of his budding relationship with a lower-class woman is hinted at, but he is far too stiffly cast in the role of an impassive and absolute arbiter of justice for these few instances to make much of a dent in his lack of personality. He is a figurehead and an archetype; to the reader he is a distant, even a foreboding figure.

Into books concerned with crime, the law must almost invariably enter, and The Circle Opens is no exception. We see the law most clearly in its first book, Magic Steps, whose principal character Sandry is conveniently the duke's great-niece, allowing us to peer into the inner working of medieval justice. For Emelan's world _is_ a medieval world, as Ms. Pierce is determined to show. Even in the realm of this most enlightened prince, execution is often summary and brutal: public disembowelment is the penalty for peddling certain illegal drugs, for example. This is interesting as it is a juxtaposition of medieval and modern mores. We do not disembowel, and rarely even execute, and the people of the middle ages would not have been so concerned with drugs, would not have outlawed them.

Instances like this force us to view Duke Vedris with something of a twenty-first century outlook, as we are wont to with the entire world of Emelan, where diversity seems to reign and discrimination, whether by race, gender, or otherwise, is virtually unknown. In many ways, Emelan is the utopian fulfillment of many ideals that our own society is still attempting to achieve. In Emelan, all religions are created equal: women hold high posts without comment, and a rainbow of skin colors live in perfect harmony. And this apparently without Affirmative Action or any of the other crutches we use to create some semblance of equality in our world. There is only one hint of discrimination: the semi-nomadic Traders are said to be despised by all, although they are protected in the realm of the good duke. The Traders hold something of the same place as did the medieval Jews: they are stereotyped as mercenary and grasping, and the old charge of blood libel is ascribed to them. In their turn, they consider themselves the Chosen People, are insular, and in their own language, have words for outsiders with connotations at least as offensive as the Yiddish "goy." But for all that the reputed prejudice against Traders, it is only in ignorant children that we see it come out. The adults of Emelan and her world are wise enough to know better.

We are bound to hold the duke and his justice to something of our own standards then, because he conforms to them in so many other ways. We notice, for example, that Vedris is in fact an autocrat. This would have been commonplace in the Middle Ages, but out of place in the enlightened society he rules over. Noblesse oblige is the way of the world; the nobility are educated to rule over and protect the masses, which serve them in return. This all begs the question: how has a society which has eradicated the glass ceiling of gender and of race not done anything to begin to shatter it for social class?

Democracy is in fact frowned upon by Ms. Pierce's usually open-minded characters. In Shatterglass, Trisana Chandler is in contempt of the efficacy of the semi-democratic assembly that rules the city-state of Tharios, preferring instead, "a proper ruler_like Duke Vedris of Emelan_" (Italics mine). It is not surprising, perhaps, that the duke is first such "proper ruler" to come to her mind, as, prior to her travels, she had spent quite a few years in his dominion. Vedris indeed is the epitome of a proper ruler: he does good and helps his people wherever he can, and at the same times imposes lawfulness and virtue among them. This is the true fantasy of these books: a government that does only good; an enlightened despot who brings prosperity and protection from the evils perpetrated by criminal minds; a country where everyone is accepted equally, and none desire to change their station. This has even less of a base in reality and history than all the magic worked by the main characters' Circle.


	2. Far More Merciful than You Deserve

"Far more merciful than you deserve:" Feudal Vigilantism and Noblesse Oblige in the Works of Tamora Pierce

Tortall is a country of the High Middle Ages, perhaps even the early Renaissance, where a strong, centralized government standardizes and enforces a common law. Through the course of Ms Pierce's three series, we see the institution of the nobility become more and more obsolete, as the merchant class rises and begins to demand its rights. Noble privilege is being curtailed, and even the aristocracy is being made to submit to royal authority. For all the talk of this reform, though, justice, in serious cases, seems to rest outside the sphere of kingly jurisdiction. That is to say, few major criminals are brought to trial and duly sentenced and executed. Rather, they are killed in the heat of battle, or simply killed. Both Alanna of Trebond and Keladry of Mindelan, as knights of their realm, take justice into their own hands in this manner without censure and often with approbation.

Distrust of the legal process seems thus to be a prominent theme in Ms Pierce's novels. Twice the law fails to bring Duke Roger to justice: both times he must be challenged and defeated by a lone, courageous individual who cuts (literally and figuratively) through layers of deception to expose and kill the traitor. It is a convenient situation, convenient in that it protects the character of the king. Jonathon is never faced with the troubling prospect of executing his only remaining relative, a scenario that could not help but be awkward. Instead, he is allowed to remain aloof and unquestionable, and his hands stay clean.

The courts, as they stand, generally represent a failure of justice in Tortall. Duke Roger is legally reinstated, despite his treason, and although Alanna does not circumvent the law when she kills him a second time, she serves him justice without its aid. Keladry, too, works outside of the law in order to see justice done. She disobeys express orders to find the "Nothing Man," even contemplates killing him in cold blood, although she eventually disposes of him in a battle. Daine may be the only one of Ms Pierce's heroines who captures an enemy of the crown alive, as she does to Yolane of Dunlath in Wolf Speaker. This fact is most interesting when compared to what has been previously noted about Alanna and Keladry's records. Wherein does the essential difference lie between the three women? Alanna and Keladry are nobles. It is the heritage of their caste to judge and deliver justice as they see fit. They hearken to an earlier time, a period that presumably existed in Tortall before its dominance by the Conté line, where nobles dealt out "high justice" to those in their domains. Daine, by contrast, is a peasant. She has neither right nor precedent to act in such a way, and she does not presume to it. When she is given divine mandate however, as in Emperor Mage, she does not hesitate to mete out summary justice, even to a monarch. Due to their noble caste, Keladry and Alanna have such a mandate in their blood. They need no special permission.

It is not only in matters of treason that Tortall's nobles take the law into their own hands. As the crown prince, Jonathon of Conté disobeys express orders to the contrary when he crosses into enemy territory to rescue his squire. This instance archetypifies the feudal bond that transcends the law of the State. As his squire's overlord, albeit a temporary one, Jonathon is obliged to rescue "Alan." To do otherwise would be to betray the oath of fealty that presumably exists between them.

Keladry as well takes her obligations very seriously. She, too, acts in direct contradiction of orders to rescue her people, to whom she feels a paternalistic duty. She feels it more important to protect her inferiors than to follow orders, if the two are in conflict. This too is a distinctly feudal and manorial perspective. This example does not require her to mediate a dispute between two commoners, or to deal out justice, but Keladry and her companions in knighthood seem to have few qualms in that area as well. Nealan of Queenscove imposes a harsh magical penalty, the illegality of which is more than hinted at, on an innkeeper as punishment for beating his servant, acknowledging the while that village justice is not to be trusted. In other words, the lower and middle classes cannot be relied upon to deal even with each other fairly. Without nobles, it is implied, the weak would be downtrodden and corrupt and stupid, but strong, folk would flourish. Nealan brushes the innkeeper's protests off, not by pronouncing the righteousness of the man's punishment, but by simple annunciation of his own power as a noble: "Who will impress the Crown more, swine? The oldest son of [the Duke of] Queenscove, or you?" The implication is that he can do whatever he wishes, just or unjust, by virtue of his position. He, and the rest of his class, ought to be obeyed not only because they are right, but also because they are powerful. And this comes from one of the more liberal, reformist nobles of the realm.

A central government has come to power in Tortall, and it is gathering in the power of the nobility. That gathering is far from completed, however, and relics of the old, personal bonds of feudalism are still too common to be even called such. And for all the talk of reform, the personage of the lone knight, powerful and righteous, still holds sway over all.

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